ISSUE ELEVEN
WINTER 2025
A COLLECTION OF IMAGES, PROJECTS, AND THOUGHTS FROM THE STUDIO OF PHILLIP K. SMITH III
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Luminous Field Series I have always talked about “painting with light” when referring to the creation of my durational color choreographies composed for my various Lightworks sculptures. For these particular works, I think of them as three-dimensional canvases that present light in a very specific way: concentric circles, concentric lozenges, full fields of light. They present blurred boundaries across their sculptural translucent surface. Depending on the color combinations and how they change, the works appear to “breathe” —expanding and contracting, pulling off of the wall or pushing into it. They appear as stacked layers of light that transform your perception of the sculptural form and the space in which they are sited. For the Luminous Field Series, I wanted to take on more directly the idea of painting with light by relying less on my sculptural forms and returning to a more traditional, flat, rectangular canvas. In this case, glass is my canvas, defined by white, black, or mirrored glass —each having their own varying levels of effect on color and perceived intensity of reflection. Within this canvas, I choreograph the light itself to be sculptural, shapeshifting freely to expand or contract, thin or thicken, become linear or expansive, transparent or opaque. The canvas is in a constant state of change as my color choreography, uniquely created for each new work, presents blurred fields of light that layer, merge, separate, move, and almost imperceptibly shift through a defined spectrum of color. Large fields of color give way to floating forms which merge back into overall gradients radiating from edges or zones. A singular vertical line dissipates to a complete immersion of color. At other times, the light diminishes at the edges, disconnecting from the rectangular frame, allowing it to float within the canvas.
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ISSUE ELEVEN. WINTER 2025
In the summer of 2023, while Smith was working on the color choreography for his first Luminous Field (84” x 84” x 8”), he created these pen and ink sketches (and others) in the same sketchbook outlining his first thoughts about the form and composition of overlapping fields of light associated with the series.
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As it pertains to the presentation of color, I’ve always been drawn to the work of Ellsworth Kelly and Mark Rothko. Kelly’s singular, sharply cropped shapes of color have inspired me, particularly as I developed the various forms of my Lightworks Series. His iconic shapes present color and unique form as a singular focused gesture that oscillates within its own edges and the spaces in which they are shown. Rothko, though, always opting to work within a traditional rectangular canvas, removes geometric shape, presents layered color, and allows the edges to blur and bleed into one another, disconnected from the canvas edges. It is a quietly bold confrontation with color with no clearly presented artistic meaning and no ease of categorization. Like a sensory deprivation chamber, Rothko’s blurred fields of color are portals into our own histories, memories and emotions. This state of focused being, of seeing outward and inward simultaneously, is my inspiration for the Luminous Field Series. But now, with the addition of time and movement as integral artistic elements, I am creating a durational experience where physical change is witnessed. And confronted with nothing but moving light, we are pulled to a deeper space of quiet and awe. Standing in front of a Luminous Field, the symmetrical presentation of light meshes with the symmetry of your own body and mind, transforming and overtaking the physical space between you and the lit surface. You feel the light on your skin as you approach the work. You attune your pace of viewing to the slowly paced movement and change in front of you. The sublime takes over as you recognize glass, frame, and light source, but cannot comprehend how this experience is actually happening. The depth of space, defined by emotion and memory, seems as endless and open as one’s own life experience. Like a true act of faith, you happily give yourself over to something that you equally understand and don’t understand. Bathed in light and witnessing change, we create dialogue with our inner self. Guided by light, we reconnect meaningfully to our own humanity, the scale of existence and, often, to a creative power beyond our understanding.
Luminous Field 3 currently in process and on view at PKS3 Studio (66” x 131” x 9.25”, 167 x 333 x 23.5 cm)
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Bent Torus Combine, 2025 7’-0” x 12’-0” x 8”, 213 x 366 x 20 cm. Aluminum, glass, automotive paint, structural silicone, LED lighting, electrical components, unique color choreography.
ISSUE ELEVEN. WINTER 2025
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I wanted to create an artwork that would be part sunset, part hearth, and part mountain. I wanted it to work both with and against the architecture, like a flower finding its way to the surface in a field of boulders.
—Phillip K. Smith III
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The concept for this commissioned work came about as the initial architectural plans were being refined for a home that would be built in Palm Springs, sited at the base of Mount San Jacinto. Weaving Smith into the architectural project at such an early stage, the clients gave him free reign to select a location for an iconic artwork that would visually anchor the home. Choosing the 7’-0” wide glass bridge that leads to the primary bedroom meant that the artwork would be sited at the central crux of the L-shaped home. This opens a more expansive viewing experience where there is no one way to view the work. Both compressed space and vast desert views experienced at multiple angles within the home set the framework for the artwork and activate Smith’s use of reflection as an integral artistic element in the commissioned work. Moving through the interior and exterior spaces of the home, the vertically creased surface of Bent Torus Combine bends and reflects the powerful presence of Mount San Jacinto, the surrounding desert landscape, and the home’s architecture and design —all of it presented across the work’s surface. As the quality of the desert light shifts throughout the day, the artwork pulls that change inward to this central wall of the home, presenting the natural surroundings in contrast to the man-made environment across the crisp geometry of two intersecting circles bent inward by 3 degrees on each side.
At dusk, the reflective surface transforms to a radiant composition of circles and arcs, separate and continuous as they push against or pass across the central vertical crease. The two circles are presented as united, but separate—each with their own identity. At times, the hues are united, but presented asymmetrically across the two sides. At other times, full color recedes to the dark of the night, creating depth as the paced change breathes in the next tapestry of colors. Blurred fields give way to crisp intersections and edges. Blues at the center left push outward onto the curved edges of the far right. Sunset inspired colorations merge to midday blues to golden yellows to the soft pastels seen in between dawn, noon, and dusk. There is an ever-changing, slowly paced push-pull to the work that is entirely rooted in the desert. By day, the compressed space of the artwork site evidences the vastness of the desert by turning your eye away from the window to the reflection of the view behind you. Via the artwork, the desert is seen “hung” on the interior wall of the home. After the sun has set, the shifting internal light, choreographed by Smith on-site, radiates a collective memory of the light of the day.
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ISSUE ELEVEN. WINTER 2025
Four Corners Extruded, 2014-2024 10’ x 10’ x 42’, 3.05 x 3.05 x 12.8 m. Steel, aluminum, automotive paint, glass, LED lighting, electronic components, unique color choreography. Located at Wilburton station, one of ten new stations along Sound Transit’s East Link Extension from Downtown Bellevue to Microsoft, Four Corners Extruded defines a vertical canvas for light and reflection in the midst of a busy urban plaza and a rapidly changing part of the city. Two vertical planes turned at 90 degrees from each other (a “plus sign” in plan view) creates four extruded, reflective corners aligned with the cardinal directions. Elevated 10’ off the ground, the monolithic sculpture collages the changing Washington sky and native treetops across its vertical reflective canvas during the day. At dusk, the colors emerge, combining with reflection to create tinted views of the environment. By night, the colors appear to float within the reflective space of each 90-degree extruded corner, breaking apart the monolithic canvas into a series of shifting fields of light. The unique color choreography, created by Smith onsite, allows colors to push forward, pull back, and seemingly to extend beyond the perceived structural layout of the sculpture’s reflective canvas. Inspired by the full spectrum of colors represented by the lit sky as well as the pace of viewing a changing sunset, the artwork’s focused experience contrasts against the adjacent speed of the highway, transit line, and movement of commuters.
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Bellevue is in the midst of an urban transformation. I wanted to create an iconic and imposing vertical tapestry of color and reflection that would both mark this moment in time and timelessly respond to the changing city and environment.
—Phillip K. Smith III
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Credits: Photography: Lance Gerber Studio @lance.gerber Graphic Design: Mariana Pariani. FairyFierceFree.com Editors: Phillip K. Smith III & Arlene Amick
WWW.PKS3.COM
@PHILLIPKSMITH3
Scalloped Disc 4:1, 2025 76” x 76” x 2.5”, 193 x 193 x 6.3 cm Commissioned for a private residence in Montecito, CA, the south-facing, matte, aluminum, anodized surface of Scalloped Disc 4:1 interacts with the changing light of the day. Its champagne-sungold surface glows, like the sun pulled down to the central garden of the home.